Integrity Marketing

Thankfulness

Posted by Roslyn Drotar, Strategic Planning
INTEGRITY MARKETING SOLUTIONS

I absolutely love this time of year.  Family and fun with fabulous food!  I love the kids running around and getting to spend time with their cousins home from college.  The most important people in your life,  all gathered around the table.   Finishing the meal with a slice of pumpkin pie, a glass of cabernet and the black Friday ads (mapping out the shopping plans for the next day).  As we head into this short week, I want to share what I’m thankful for. 

• My husband.  I’m blessed to have an amazing husband and best friend for the past 14 years.  I couldn’t ask for a better father for my children.  What a fun journey this has been as our family grows and we build a home with the boys playing around us (sometimes breaking things along the way).  I’m also thankful for his job that helps put food on our table and provide for our children.  In these trying times, I don’t take that for granted.
• My boys.  When I think of them, and how much they mean to me, I get choked up.  They give purpose to my life.   I’m a better person because of them.  I never knew I could love so much.  Each one touches my heart in a unique and powerful way.  Since having them I am also thankful for coffee.  I didn’t drink it before I had children, but now it’s part of my regular routine in the morning.  I knew it was bad when my three year old pointed to Starbucks and said “You want your coffee mommy?”  That’s branding!
• The rest of my fabulous family.  I’m grateful for my mother, my sister and my brother, and my nieces and nephews.  My sister is my best friend and biggest support.  This is a beautiful friendship that I’ve been blessed with my whole life and I’m pretty sure there isn’t a better sister on this plant.  I’m thankful for my in-laws in Colorado too.  I know if I called any one of them, they would drop what they were doing and travel to California.  They are so full of love I can feel it from over 1,000 miles away!
• My friends.  Every girl needs them.  We shop till we drop, do coffee, mani-pedis, day spa, book club (code for wine club) and GNO (code word for Girls Night Out).  But the best times are when we just sit and talk.  In the everyday challenges of raising children, working, football practice, homework, laundry, travel, etc, it gets tough juggling it all and keeping it together.  They are my support system, and without them I would break.
• My life experiences.  This may sound corny but I’m thankful for them, good or bad.  If they’re good, I relish in them.  If not, I see them as an opportunity to learn and grow. 
• My career.  Working with the team at Integrity Marketing Solutions is hands down, one of the best I’ve had the privilege to work with.  This group is committed and kind.  They “get it” and work hard for the very best possible outcome in every situation.  They are 100% in all that they do.  The years prior to joining their team, I worked in the law firm, travelling around the nation getting to know some of the most successful estate planning attorneys and their staff.  The coaching and collaboration along the way has been priceless.  And I’ve become friends with people along the way that are very dear to me.  I’m thankful for the opportunities I’ve been given.

I recently saw a quote “Change your Life with an Attitude of Gratitude.” I’m going to make an effort to do that, and I challenge you to do the same.   Learning to appreciate the things in your life each and every day is bound to make life more fulfilling.  I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and friends.  

 

When CreatingYour Marketing Plan, Keep Up With The Joneses.

Do you ever look around at all the materialist goods your neighbor (or biggest competitor in business) has and wonder how they have it all?  When it comes to your marketing plan, you need to keep an eye on your competition and keep up with “The Joneses.”  Look right over their fence and into their backyard and see what they are doing.  Then always stay one step ahead.   You see maybe - just maybe – you’ll see that they are doing something to get all that business and generate all that revenue.  So in business, it’s always good to be a nosey neighbor.  Most business owners that are successful today and are meeting their financial goals have one thing in common: instead of cutting their marketing budget, they are increasing their marketing budget and keeping their eye on their competition.  They are making significant moves with their marketing efforts.  Some marketing efforts will work and some won’t, but grab onto the ones that do, stick with them, and you will benefit.  

But we all know that, right?  We’ve all heard that one: ‘You need to increase your marketing budget.’  Give this thought a shot for me for a minute.  When you’re marketing you want to use the resources that will give you the greatest opportunities, increase your sales and give you a competitive advantage.  Sit and come up with your firms SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), put your marketing action into place and then go for it to be wildly successful!    

When it comes to marketing your business, always keep up with those Joneses.  Never stop snooping around to see what they are doing, keep your eye on them and stay one step ahead.  When you do, you’ll become The Joneses of your town! 

Re: Social Media -- From One Dinosaur to Another, "I feel ya!"

I took a college course in Public Relations while I was in journalism school at the University of Missouri -- circa 1978. I interned in the PR office of a private college and my first "real job" was as the PR Director at another private college. Holy cow, that was more than 30 years ago!

Since then, I went on to become the managing editor of a daily newspaper, then PR & Marketing director for a major health care system, then a trust marketing officer for a bank holding company, practice manager for a law firm and finally (in 1995) co-founder of Integrity Marketing Solutions, providing marketing services and consulting to estate and elder law attorneys.

PR and Marketing has changed tremendously since I first studied it back at MU! I was thinking that I could have become one of those stodgy, veteran "PR Professionals" who resist change, champion the old, formal ways of relating to the public (isn't that what public relations is all about?), and smugly ignore the online revolution of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Blogs, interactive websites and RSS feeds. To be perfectly honest, that sounds a lot easier, more comfortable and less time-consuming.

Unfortunately, the easy way is seldom the most profitable!

I am currently reading "The New Rules of Marketing & PR" by David Meerman Scott. Interestingly, the new rules are not entirely unlike the old rules, they are just applied differently. Using different technologies, different media. I find this a comforting thought. As an old dinosaur, I can wrap my mind around the concept of the new online social media as just another medium through which we develop meaningful, lasting relationships.

If I could transition from hot type through phototypesetting to Quark, from "the pit" in the belly of the newspaper office through the composing room to digital pagination at my laptop ... surely I can navigate my way around Technorati, Twitter, and Feedburner.

And I am not alone. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 73 percent of American adults say they use the internet. The internet and online social media have, as Scott says, "liberated" us to reach our target audiences directly. Instead of cultivating a few coveted relationships with key journalists and hoping for "publicity" in the mass media, we can now go directly to our audience(s) and cultivate mutually beneficial relationships. We can relate. With the public.

If you are an estate or elder law attorney who longs for the "good old days" when hanging a shingle was all you needed to bring clients in the door, (to quote the young kids) "I feel ya." I really do. If you wish social media would leave you alone, that birds were still the only ones twittering, and that telephones were still connected to the wall, "I feel ya."

But friends, it's a brave new world out there (yes, that phrase dates me as well). The new rules of marketing and public relations strike down the old rules. To coin Southwest Airlines, you are now free to move about the country!

And the best thing about the new rules? Your competitors probably don't know about them yet!

Pssst: You don't have to restrict your marketing to developing referral relationships with financial advisors who can send you clients. You can now deploy your website and social media to attract clients online, and you can do so without commiting "direct solicitation" violations!

Pro-Estate Tax Group Targeting Wyden

Estate Planning Practice Alert.

A policy group, United for a Fair Economy, is firing back at the powerful estate tax repeal lobby.  See their Estate Tax Action Center Here.

Their most recent volley was a series of ads aimed at Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, highlighting the need to "Keep the Fairest Tax of All." 50 influential Oregonians signed their names to newspaper ads appearing in four papers across the state, urging Sen. Wyden to preserve the estate tax.

See the ad: http://www.faireconomy.org/estatetax/oregon print ads.pdf

The group calls for "responsible reform," which includes raising the exemption to $2 million for individuals, $4 million for married couples, and implementing a progressive tax rate.  The group adds that "cutting taxes for multi-millionaires and billionaires during a time of war is un-American and has never been done in U.S. history. Some people are holding bake sales to buy Kevlar vest for their kids in Iraq, but the US House is working to ensure that heiress Paris Hilton gets every dime of her inheritance. "

Estate Planners -- you may want to read more!